Retail Safety Expert’s Testimony Regarding the Duty of Care and Breach Excluded

Plaintiff William Ramsey was allegedly injured while visiting the Defendant’s store in Somerset. As a result, the Plaintiff filed a premises liability cause of action against Defendant, Lowe’s Home Centers, LLC.

Plaintiff relied on the testimony and opinions of Keven Moore. According to Moore, “Defendant did not fulfill the requisite duty of care to safeguard Plaintiff on December 7th, 2022,” and such failure “to adhere to the standard professional care and practices mandated in the retail building materials and home improvement industry, which are critical for the safe operation of such establishments, . . . significantly contributed to the injury sustained by Plaintiff.” Defendant, however, sought to exclude all testimony and opinions by Moore.

Retail Safety Expert Witness

Keven G. Moore is a senior risk control consultant/manager/HSE safety manager/independent consultant of demonstrated experience in leading organizations to integrate progressive safety, health, environmental, risk management and claims initiatives within public and private sectors.” He has over 35 years of risk management & safety professional work experience.

Want to know more about the challenges Keven Moore has faced? Get the full details with our Challenge Study report. 

Discussion by the Court

Defendant articulated eight reasons why, it argued, Moore’s report and related testimony would fail to satisfy Daubert and Rule 702, namely that Moore:

(1) Lacked experience in the field of retail lumber or home improvement

(2) Did not document or describe any methodology

(3) Attempted to usurp the function of the Court by opining on the duty allegedly owed by [Defendant] to its customers

(4) Is not qualified to give causation opinions because he is not a medical doctor

(5) Contradicted the burden of proof imposed upon Plaintiff and attempted to redirect it to Defendant

(6) Engaged in flat-out speculation

(7) Opined that Defendant should have had signage in the lumber aisle which is moot based on Plaintiff’s own testimony

(8) Relied on questionable online sources for information which are not sources of scientific, technical, professional, or other specialized knowledge. From this, the Court understood that Defendant primarily challenged Moore’s qualifications and the reliability of his testimony, and it also raised concerns about Moore’s ability to make legal determinations, among other things.

Analysis

The Moore report opined that Defendant “did not uphold a reasonable standard of duty of care to safeguard Plaintiff”; “failed to adhere to the professional care and practices that are customary in the retail building materials and home improvement industry, which are essential for operating such an establishment safely”; “failed to exercise their duty of care in safely retrieving awkward, heavy, and oversized stock”; and, along with its employees, engaged in “several reckless and actions and inactions that helped create a very dangerous environment.”

However, Moore failed to identify the alleged industry standard or professional care and practices that are “customary,” and fails to describe how Lowe’s allegedly breached them. Moreover, the Court held that many of these broad-brush statements are legal conclusions or generic recitations of the legal standard to which Moore cannot properly testify.

Plaintiff has utterly failed to provide the Court with any basis to find that Moore’s method—which remains a mystery to the Court other than his listing of “evidence reviewed” and ostensibly his experience—has been “‘tested, accepted, or used by other experts in the field of retail safety.'” In this case, Moore did not even indicate that he read “publications” relevant to retail home improvement standards. Other than his own experience, Moore identified only litigation documents and websites as the basis for his opinions. Websites such as Wikipedia, Zippia, and Yelp are clearly insufficient to meet Plaintiff’s burden under Rule 702. 

Moreover, Moore himself admitted that, because he “was retained as an expert witness nearly two years after the incident had occurred, he “determined that there would be no value in . . . visiting the site of the accident.”

Held

The Court granted the Defendant’s motion to exclude the testimony of Plaintiff’s expert witness, Keven Moore.

Key Takeaway:

Moore failed to rely on anything other than the record in this matter, coupled with his extensive experience. This is insufficient on this record to demonstrate reliability. At no point did Moore, who “relied ‘solely or primarily on experience, . . . explain how that experience leads to the conclusions he reached, why that experience is a sufficient basis for the opinion, and how that experience is reliably applied to the facts.'” The Court simply cannot find that any of Moore’s proffered opinions are sufficiently reliable under Rule 702.

Case Details:

Case Caption:	Ramsey V. Lowe’s Home Centers, LLC
Docket Number:	6:24cv1
Court Name:	United States District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky, Southern Division
Order Date:	September 04, 2025